IN the last 12 months at Monaco, tomorrow has been a day that never comes.
After the multiple calamities of the 2018-19 campaign – a disastrous transfer window, an unprecedented cavalcade of injuries, two managerial sackings and a dismal 17th-place finish in Ligue 1 – this was supposed to be the season when the club from the principality got back on track. But after four games of the new campaign, Monaco are still to taste victory and currently lie second from bottom in the table, seven points off the Champions League places – the club’s stated objective for the season – and with a goal difference of -6.
In Leonardo Jardim, Monaco have one of the most highly rated managers in European football. With players like Cesc Fàbregas, Aleksandr Golovin, Gelson Martins and Wissam Ben Yedder, their squad is packed with talent. In the French top flight, only Paris Saint-Germain have more resources. So why can’t they get it together?
The problems began in the summer of 2018. Monaco had sold a glut of key players at the end of their stunning 2016-17 title-winning campaign and the sales continued the following summer, with Fabinho, João Moutinho and Thomas Lemar all leaving Stade Louis II. Monaco’s approach to player investment – buying up-and-coming prospects and then selling them on at a profit – was by this point well established, but Jardim felt the model had been pushed beyond its limits in 2018 and predicted that he would face his “most difficult season” since his arrival at the club in June 2014.
He was not wrong. Jardim was sacked in October after a return of one win from nine Ligue 1 games left Monaco in 18th place. His replacement, Thierry Henry, fared no better. The former Monaco striker had to contend with a scarcely believable injury crisis that at one point deprived of him no fewer than 17 senior players, obliging him to blood untested teenagers in both the league and Champions League. But there was scarcely any improvement during his three-month tenure – a period in which he tasted victory in only two Ligue 1 matches – and at the end of January, he, too, was sacked. And replaced by Jardim.
Dmitry Rybolovlev, Monaco’s Russian billionaire owner, felt that sacking Jardim in the first place had been the club’s biggest mistake and laid the blame squarely at the door of vice-president Vadim Vasilyev, a close ally of Jardim’s who had helped to construct the team that won the title and reached the Champions League semi-finals in 2017. Rybolovlev fired Vasilyev in February and replaced him with Oleg Petrov, a longstanding associate who knew lots about buying and selling potassium and diamonds but very little about buying and selling footballers.
Nevertheless, Monaco’s problems were clear – namely, a damaging dearth of proven quality in the first-team squad – and in January the club moved to address those shortcomings, bringing in players such as Fàbregas, Martins, Adrien Silva, Naldo and Fodé Ballo-Touré in a flurry of loans and outright transfers.
The impact of Jardim’s return was almost immediate. After a 2-0 loss at Dijon in his first league game, he engineered a run of seven matches without defeat that included eye-catching wins over Lyon and Lille. Monaco climbed out of the relegation places, raising hopes of a late run at a top-10 finish. But then the wheels came off again. They won only one of their final nine matches and finished the season just two points above the relegation play-off spot in 17th place.
“I always knew we’d mess up a season one day, but I didn’t expect it to be so catastrophic,” the departed Vasilyev confided to L’Équipe at the end of the season.
Eager to write the campaign off as an aberration, Petrov set Monaco the target of a top-three finish for the new season, declaring: “We have to get back into the Champions League.”
Monaco picked up where they had left off in January when the summer transfer window opened by once again targeting proven top-level performers from Europe’s major leagues. They signed Martins on a permanent basis from Atlético, recruited goalkeeper Benjamin Lecomte and right-back Ruben Aguilar from domestic rivals Montpellier, brought Tiémoué Bakayoko back to the club on loan from Chelsea, stiffened their defence with the capture of rugged Chile international Guillermo Maripán from Alavés and, in what represented a major coup, shelled out €40 million to sign prolific France international striker Ben Yedder from Sevilla.
With Jardim eager to revert to the 4-4-2 system with which he took Monaco to the title, strikers Islam Slimani (Leicester City) and Jean-Kévin Augustin (RB Leipzig) came in on loan. Their arrivals facilitated the departure of Radamel Falcao, another hero of 2017, who left for Galatasaray after scoring 83 goals for the club in 140 games. Youri Tielemans and Rony Lopes also left, among others, yet Monaco still count a remarkable 72 professional players on their books (including 19 currently out on loan).
Though bloated, the squad is brimming over with quality, but for now, at least, that has not translated into positive results. Monaco lost 3-0 at home to Lyon on the opening day, then went down 3-0 at promoted Metz before a couple of frustrating stalemates: a 2-2 draw at home to Nîmes in which they led 2-0 with 20 minutes remaining and a 2-2 draw away to Strasbourg in which Slimani twice put them in front. Injuries and late transfers have not helped Jardim in his search for a settled starting XI, but indiscipline has been an issue as well, with players being sent off (Fàbregas, Aguilar and Jemerson) in each of the first three games.
The slow start has irked Monaco’s fans and Jardim has found himself in the firing line, but Petrov spoke out in his defence last month, explaining that the squad was “not complete” and absolving the Portuguese of responsibility for the team’s poor form.
Jardim’s players will have returned from international duty in various states of form and he must contend with a handful of injuries and suspensions ahead of Sunday’s home game with Marseille, but with the transfer window now closed, the time has come for him to devise a new winning formula. Because tomorrow can’t be put off forever.
